The Los Angeles Lakers will look to retool their roster around Luka Dončić and LeBron James this offseason. General manager Rob Pelinka has his hands full as teams will reportedly be reluctant to deal with him following the midseason blockbuster acquisition of the five-time All-Star NBA guard.
While he has yet to make a move in the early stages of the offseason, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations has reportedly checked in on the Miami Heat’s asking price for a star forward. Anthony Irwin of Clutch Points reported that Los Angeles has inquired about landing Andrew Wiggins.
“I think, right now, the Lakers are interested in any athlete,” Clutch Points’ Anthony Irwin stated Monday. “Wiggins does make a little too much money for my liking. $28 million is a lot for Andrew Wiggins. He’s still pretty good. He’s not the player he was a couple of years ago when he helped the Warriors win a championship. He’s also had some weird situations where he just walks away from the team.”
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“Some of those questions about how driven he is, those are the kind of things that the Lakers take very seriously,” Irwin added. “I will say that the Lakers — again, because of their relationship with Pat Riley — I would imagine they are very well in tune with what Pat thinks of what he saw from Andrew Wiggins, which I don’t think was all that great. I don’t know, but the Lakers have checked in on him. They have asked about what the price would be. The problem, again, with Miami is that they are stuck in no man’s land because of the organizational torture chamber they have placed themselves in.”
Irwin noted that Wiggins does not always live up to his talent level. The one-time All-Star appeared in 60 games for the Golden State Warriors and Heat last season. He averaged 18.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.0 steals and 0.8 blocks per game while shooting 44.8% from the field, 37.4% from three-point range and 76.3% from the free-throw line.
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